EE - Eppes Equestria
by RainbowDashFanClub
Summary: It's a usual day in the NUMB3RS universe when Allan finds a note on a chalkboard from somebody who calls themselves T.S. and finds Charlie missing. Turns out that T.S. stands for Twilight Sparkle and she needs him for a case involving the murder of Rainbow's coltfriend Cloud. Afterwards, though, the situation begins to devolve into something even a complex algorithm couldn't solve.
1. Prologue

"Charlie?! Hey Charlie!" The man's father shouted through the house. "You'd think that just because he had a break today he wouldn't up and disappear…" He dropped his newish beige jacket over the back of a chair and continued to look all around the house. He'd gotten that jacket a little while ago as a present from Mildred, or Millie as she liked to be called, he wore it most of the time these days. She'd seen it in a shop window while she was walking and promised herself to get it for him. That was months ago. She finally got around to giving it to him a week ago, though it really wasn't her fault – since he'd been taking classes at CalSci it was hard to find him at a time when he wasn't studying anymore. He'd just gotten back from classes and needed his math whiz son's help with a few things.

As if the man wasn't already doing enough with his life, he had to help his father with math. It's really not like it was difficult for him, though. He had a doctorate in mathematics and utilized this often to help his older brother with FBI cases. This was what he spent most of his time doing these days, other than his Cognitive Emergence work. These two big projects took up most of his life and as such he rarely had any free time, hence the fact that his relationships haven't gone well, if they've gone at all, for a long time. Yet his father knew this, and he still suspected he'd gone out with Amita until he looked in the garage.

Written on one of the blackboards, completely blank other than this note in the corner, there was a piece of writing that was hardly written by Charlie. This wasn't the handwriting of anybody else he knew either. It was on a purple post-it that was stuck to the upper corner of the blackboard, written in bright pink ink. They had very good cursive and were obviously proficient with a… whatever they wrote that with. It looked blatantly like something written with an old-fashioned quill and ink; however such mechanisms were hardly used anymore. Yet it looked exactly like that.

It was then that the man's father read the note itself.

"_Mister Eppes,  
I am sorry for the short notice, but I have borrowed your son for a while to work on a case. He will be back in, at most, a week. If you would be so kind as to do me the favor of cancelling any appointments he has that may conflict with this, I would greatly appreciate it. If you would like to contact me, please wait until your son arrives home, I shall come with him to personally thank you. And do not worry; your son is not in any danger.  
Oh, and one last thing. I'd appreciate it if you did not worry. As I said, your son is in no danger.  
-T.S."_


	2. TS

The man became conscious before he actually woke up. He became aware of the fact that he was lying on his stomach and that his fingers and toes were numb. He inhaled through his nose and figured that he could smell better than he had before he woke into this state. Or at least he figured that. He didn't know for sure. He became aware of having a few more muscles that he wasn't aware of having before. For example, he could suddenly move his back in ways he wasn't previously able to. He was able to move his ears back and forth, though they seemed to have moved upward to the sides of his forehead. No matter, he could hear much better than he could previously as well, well enough to pick up a voice saying from what seemed to be a lower floor than he was on, "I think he should be awake by now."

As such, he opens his eyes. It seems to take a little longer than usual to open them, and his eyesight seems exponentially better than before. He looks out the window into the bright daylight and the glaring sunlight that was shining right onto his face. It didn't help that the walls were made of crystal. He felt incredibly tired for no particular reason. Though a man doesn't get as far as he's gotten by being lazy, as such he forced himself to lift his chin off the mattress and get into a sitting position, though he was surprisingly unstable like this. Then he looked down at his hands- well, not anymore.

He placed one of his… hooves… onto the bed in front of him and picked up the other one to examine it. His… coat was of a dark blue color, the hooves themselves were the black of his curly hair. "I appear to be a horse of some sort," he muttered to himself. He hadn't even heard the door open to another who corrected him in a kind voice, "Pony."

"Yes," he said, looking up to see a lilac-coated unicorn with cobalt blue hair with pink and purple streaks in it, "I think I'm in the body of one."  
"That's… kind of true," the unicorn said, gesturing with a front hoof, "You've been turned into one."  
"Why?" he asked.  
"I need your help with a case." He wasn't informed with how horse- eh… ponies, emote, however it was reasonably obvious that she was worried, "I know you help with those often."  
"Yeah, for Don," said the man, referencing his older brother at the FBI. Now that he thought about it, Don would probably be really worried. "Where am I?"  
"You're in Equestria."

"Where is Equestria, exactly? I've never heard of it."  
"Here's something you might have heard of. Multiverse theory?"  
"Oh yeah, Larry talks about it sometimes… the theory that each choice we make creates another universe in which that choice wasn't made, and that all these universes sort of run on top of each other, each invisible to the others."  
"That's the gist of it, yes. This is another, parallel universe. In this one, we're all ponies. We tried bringing humans here on several occasions using magic, however it hardly worked. The one that worked out the best for the human was the Wright case, but I really don't think bringing Phoenix back into this would solve anything."

"Magic?"  
"Yes, magic. I can use magic." She pointed to her horn. "By the looks of it, you have a horn as well."  
The man poked at his forehead with a front hoof. Sure enough there was a pointy thing there.  
"How on Earth does magic work?"  
"It's 'How in Equestria', first of all. Second, if you're asking how to perform spells, the first few should come intuitively. After that, if you want to study it, magic is a science."  
"For something usually so arbitrary, it's odd that magic would be a science. And no thanks, I'm a mathematician, not a magician."  
"Well, in our world, magic is hardly arbitrary. It _is_ a science and even for non-unicorns there are magic theory classes and textbooks."

He thought about pushing this subject on – learning as much as possible about magic and it's workings in this universe – but refrained. He thought he'd figure it out later, looking around he saw that the walls were covered in books. He could find something on these shelves, most likely. Given how enthused about and absorbed with magic this pony seemed, there had to be something.

Deliberately changing the subject, Charlie asked, "What's your name?"  
"Twilight Sparkle." She sounded much less pissed off than before.  
Charlie snickered. "That sounds like an ice cream flavor."  
"I have never even heard of an ice cream named after me, but I wouldn't be surprised if they had one."  
She unfurled a pair of feathered wings that matched her coat that he hadn't seen before.  
"You have wings… and therefore they have the right to name an ice cream flavor after you?"  
"No!" She stamped her hooves on the ground, and somehow, while surrounded by a magenta-colored glow, a crown floated over and sat itself atop her head. That whole time, her horn had been glowing that color as well.

"No need to explode," he said, "So you're a Queen or something. That makes sense. I'm not from around here, okay?"  
"Oh. …Sorry. Keep forgetting that. And you're close, I'm a Princess."  
"Oh, then your mom is Queen? Where's she?"  
"Eh… no. My mother is a normal pony. There are no Queens in Equestria. Princess is the highest you get."  
"But you know of the term."  
"I know of the term 'Queen' because other kingdoms over our world have Kings and Queens. Most are… less than nice."  
"Ah." He made a mental note to look this up later.

"I made you some breakfast," Twilight said, "Then we'll go to investigate."  
"Investigate… what exactly?"  
"A suicide… we think. At least, that's what the EBI says it is with the current evidence. We'll have to perform an autopsy and a full investigation to be sure, though."  
"EBI?"  
"Equestrian Bureau of Investigation."  
"The Feds as ponies."  
"Feds?"  
"Short term for the FBI. That's the Federal Bureau of Investigation – the EBI from my… eh… universe."

They arrived in the kitchen after walking down a long crystal hallway and Charlie saw what appeared to be a small dragon cooking. He had a fleeting thought of how odd this universe was but said nothing. The dragon was purple and green and wore a pink-and-white apron with fluff around the edges and a pink heart in the middle. Assuming the dragon was a girl would probably lead to significant issues, so Charlie simply pointed a hoof and asked, "Who's that?"  
"That's Spike, my assistant. Spike, meet Charlie."  
"Oh, you're that math geek Twilight was talking about! Hey there!"

…Definitely a boy. Just a boy with interesting choices in clothing.  
"Hey," Charlie replied, "What do you have to eat here?"  
"Oatmeal," the dragon said happily, "And I have a gemstone!"  
"How on… uh… in Equestria do you pick up a spoon with your hooves?"  
Twilight was already eating by moving the spoon around in that magenta glow she had, she swallowed her bite of oatmeal and said, "Oh, you levitate it. Just focus on moving it and it'll move."  
He stared at the spoon, expecting it to do something. It just sat there. Charlie sighed. Math, sure. Magic, not so much.

At one point he just thought, "You know, screw it" and just picked up the bowl. He took a bite straight out of the bowl and set it down again. Then he realized his hooves never touched the bowl.  
"Ha!" he exclaimed, floating the bowl all around on a whim. Then, as if holding it with his other hand, he picked up the spoon in his magical grasp as well. His grin hadn't been this big since he first discovered math.  
He ate the rest of the oatmeal while levitating both the bowl and the spoon at once. Twilight smiled and did the same for the pure novelty of it.

After breakfast they placed the bowls and spoons in the sink for Spike to wash and they walked toward the edge of Ponyville. During this walk Charlie got the hang of being a quadruped. He was informed by Twilight about his cutie mark, namely, the symbol for an infinite sum in calculus: . She told him it probably meant he had a talent with math, all of it. He asked about her cutie mark and she replied that it symbolized her talent with magic, all of it. He proceeded to joke that they were the same people, just in different fields. She corrected and told him that it was 'ponies'. He shrugged it off.


	3. Mathemagician

They arrived at the entrance to the Everfree forest and Charlie immediately walked in without an ounce of hesitation. Twilight cringed a bit but followed him.  
"Where's the crime scene?" he asked, looking around.  
"There's a clearing on the right side of the path soon-ish, that's it. The EBI thinks the pony hung himself, but we've yet to even get identification on him."  
"Unicorn?"  
"Pegasus."  
"You have flying horses?"  
"Flying ponies. But yes."

They arrived at the crime scene and saw a pony with a green coat and a pale yellow mane, his wings drooped down to the sides. He had on a blue and yellow skin-tight shirt that came up to and covered his cheeks. His cutie mark seemed to be three red lines of three different lengths.  
"Odd cutie mark," Charlie noted in his thoughts, continuing to look around. There was a coil of thick, white rope – the same kind of rope that was used to hang the pony from the tree. There were a few large scrapes across the ground and a few vaguely ovular shapes pressed into the ground below those scrapes. Near the bushes at the edge of the clearing, away from the pathway, there was a short piece of rebar. His eyes quickly darted between the scrapes across the ovular depressions in the dirt and the rebar. A series of equations ran through his head.

"Twilight!" he exclaimed, rushing over. He nearly lost his balance – he wasn't used to running yet – but he hardly cared.  
"Ugh… could you stop thinking so loudly?! I can't comprehend a single word of it and I can't concentrate!"  
"But Twilight, I think I've got it!"  
"Take over," Twilight said to a few ponies in white vests with blue letters spelling out "EBI" on the fronts. They nodded and said, "Yes, Princess." Twilight followed Charlie over to where he'd been standing previously – at the edge of the pathway.

"Okay, what is it? He's a pegasus – that's hardly my area of expertise. I was checking the rope over there – it was handled in somepony's mouth, that's how non-unicorns carry things most of the time. If we could only find something else we know he touched, we might be able to find out the pony who handled the rope, therefore the pony that killed him. But as I said, that's hardly my area of expertise."  
"Doesn't need to be. See those scrapes across the ground? They're fairly deep – too deep for someone to have done it with a wing-tip or… a horn or a… a hoof. But see that piece of rebar over there? I'd have to do some calculations and measure the rebar as it relates to the depth of those gashes and I might be able to see if that rebar is the thing that made those gashes."  
"But what does that piece of rebar making those gashes have to do with…"  
"See these ovular markings that were obviously made BEFORE the gashes? They're most likely hoof prints. The pony who made those gashes was probably trying to cover their hoof prints, probably with that rebar over there. As such, if we can identify if those gashes were made by that rebar…"  
"We'll be able to see if the last pony who handled that rebar was the same pony who handled the rope!"  
"Exactly."

~Meanwhile…

"Eppes." Charlie's brother Don answered his phone. He only listened for a few seconds before nodding and closing it.  
"What is it, Don?" his father asked.  
"We have a suicide… they guess. Guy hung himself in a forest. He's a champion runner in-training; we can tell that by his costume… we're still trying to identify him. We've got the Feds on the scene already. I'll be there as well, let's see what I can do. Hey… where's Charlie? He might be helpful in this."  
"Charlie's gone. Somebody called T.S. took him for a week."  
"What?! What for?!"  
"Don, they said not to worry. Whoever it is has things under control." He showed Don the note.  
"…I still don't trust this T.S."  
"I'd be heavily surprised if you trusted anybody you hadn't met."  
"I'll go investigate this, but if I don't get word from Charlie…"  
"You'll send out the full SWAT team."  
"Exactly."

Don arrived at the forest and climbed out of his car. He saw the signature yellow tape, from a tree hung the body of a blonde, slender man with a track suit on.  
"This is Clyde Dachel. He's an up-and-coming track runner; he's been sprinting since age 4. We're still working on a profile for him," another agent by the name of David informed him.  
There were a set of footprint-like markings on the ground, but they were covered by a set of gashes. It looks suspicious, and something told Don that this must be crucial evidence, but Charlie would've been so much better at this. There wasn't really anything that jumped out at him other than that. The gashes were odd for being made by a branch, which was probably what it was. However, if whoever's tracks these were had any sense, he'd have long since thrown the branch away or into a river or something, so they didn't actually have any evidence.

And so he was about to call up the person who was closest to Charlie and might have known how to solve it when he actually received a call. The number wasn't known, so he asked,  
"Hello?"  
"You're Charlie's brother, correct?"  
"Uh… yeah."  
"You may have read my note. I'm T.S. It stands for Twilight Sparkle, that's my name. I've taken your brother to Equestria."  
"You're T.S."  
"Mm-hmm."  
"And where is Equestria, exactly?"  
"Parallel universe. I called because I need to pull somepony- er, somebody else into my world. I'd like your permission and her location."  
"You won't have my permission until I hear from Charlie."  
Then Charlie's voice came onto the phone. It was oddly staticy but Don could hear his brother confirm all his questions as to if he came to 'Equestria' voluntarily and to that T.S. was treating him just fine, as well as a few remarks that he could handle things himself. When Twilight came back on, she asked,  
"Do I have your permission now?"  
"Who is it you want?"  
"I believe her name is Amita."

~Fifteen minutes later, at Amita's…

The phone rang. She picked it up.  
"Hello?" she asked.  
"Hey, Amita? You know where Charlie is?" Don's voice came over the phone.  
"No… I haven't seen him since yesterday. Why?"  
"Somebody called Twilight Sparkle pulled him into a… parallel… universe I think… and now she's asking to bring you there as well."  
"Who's Twilight Sparkle? It's certainly an unusual name."  
"She didn't say. She's from Equestria, she told me."  
"Who or what is Equestria?"  
"Equestria is that parallel universe. She's investigating a case there, from what she told me it's on the suspicious suicide of a per- uh, pony called Cloud Dasher. They're all ponies over there. Seems incredibly similar to a case I just got. It's a suspicious suicide of a person named Clyde Dachel."

"Names are similar, what else?"  
"Well, on each scene there's a set of prints leading toward the body that are covered in scratches. Charlie thinks he figured out what made the scratches in that world, but could it be a coincidence that they're so similar?"  
"Not very likely… And actually, as much as going into another universe might be odd, it might help me understand your case. I'll just ask Twilight Sparkle to bring me right back so I can note the similarities on your case personally."  
"Sounds good, Amita. I'll try to redial Twilight Sparkle and tell her about it."  
"Okay, thanks Don."

~Meanwhile…

"Who were you talking to?" asked Charlie.  
"I wasn't talking. I was thinking," Twilight replied.  
"Well you were thinking pretty loudly… hey, is that magic?"  
"Yes! You're getting the hang of it – Great!"  
"Who were you thinking to?"  
"Your brother."  
"Why?"  
"He told me that Amita agreed to come help with this."  
"She is? She has? She's coming? When?"  
"…Now."

As if on command a pony figure appeared out of thin air in a cloud of magenta-colored smoke and coughed a little as the smoke dissipated.  
"…Charlie?"  
"Amita?"  
"Yeah. Am I… a horse?"  
"Pony," corrected Twilight and Charlie at once.  
Amita looked over her hooves and her light blue coat and dark violet hair.  
"Is my hair supposed to be purple?"  
"I suppose," Twilight said, "I'm not in charge of your physical appearance in the terms of dual-universe translation processes."  
"Is anypony?"  
"No, Charlie, I don't think so."

Amita tried to take a few steps and nearly fell over.  
"I know, it takes getting used to," Charlie said.  
"Last I checked, your hair wasn't black."  
"You're right. As Twilight put it, it's the fault of the dual-universe translation processes."  
"All ponies are this… colorful?"  
"Yes, Amita, all ponies are this colorful. I need you to help out here, though."  
"Wait a moment. You're Twilight Sparkle?"  
"Yes."  
"Well, Twilight Sparkle, there's something that may concern you. That…" she pointed to the body, "Is Cloud Dasher? We have a similar case involving one Clyde Dachel. He's a runner, up and coming."

"Cloud is pretty obviously a Wonderbolts Academy trainee. Or at the very least, _was_. We're trying to contact a next of kin," Twilight said, pointing to the costume.  
"I'm assuming the Wonderbolts Academy is some sort of athletic thing," Charlie said. Twilight nodded.  
"It's an elite flying academy, dedicated to weed out who can and will become Wonderbolts," Twilight explained, "You have to be in good standing with the Wonderbolts team themselves to get in to the Academy, then you have to work your tail off to get to the top. After the week spent in the Academy, a leader is chosen. Said leader must take a written test on Wonderbolts history as the next step to becoming accepted into the Wonderbolts themselves."

"So the Wonderbolts are really good," Charlie said, "And pegasus ponies have to work hard to get there."  
"Precisely."  
"So, Twilight… what did you need me for?"  
"I needed you because you might be able to tell us the probability that those scratches there came from that rebar over there. Also, tell me whatever else you find out."  
"I can try," Amita said, carefully walking over to where the scratches were and proceeding to look at the rebar.  
Charlie levitated the rebar in front of his face and said, "Hmm… Amita, can you tell me what these are?"  
He pointed to but didn't touch a few small dents in the surface of the rebar. He levitated it in front of her face so she could look at it closer.

"Those seem to be… bite marks! But who on Earth would bite rebar?"  
"Somepony who can't hold it up with magic," Charlie replied, keeping the rebar in his magical grasp as he galloped back over to Twilight.  
"There are bite marks at the top of this rebar."  
"Amita figured that out?"  
"Yeah."  
"That means we can rule out a unicorn as the possible suspect, since any unicorn would prefer not to leave any evidence if possible. That leaves earth ponies and pegasi."

"Actually, it only leaves pegasi," Amita replied, having just as carefully walked back over.  
"How?" Twilight asked.  
"From what I gather, pegasi can fly. To hang this pony, you'd need to be able to either fly or hoist the rope up by some other means. See how high up it is?"  
"Magic," Twilight said.  
"But since he grabbed the rebar in his mouth, he's obviously not a unicorn," Charlie pointed out, "So what Amita's saying is that the pony who hung Cloud is obviously a pegasus."  
"Makes sense," Twilight replied. Everypony else nodded.


	4. Similarities and Inequalities

The next morning, Charlie woke up and walked out onto the porch. Twilight was watching a sky blue pegasus with rainbow-colored hair perform various tricks.  
"Who's that?"  
"Rainbow Dash. I hope she's okay…"  
"Have you identified the next of kin for Cloud Dasher?"  
"Yeah." She pointed at Rainbow.  
"She's his next of kin? What relation?"  
"She's his girlfriend. She's taking it pretty hard, though she won't show it." She sighed. "I just hope she's all right."

Rainbow flew over quickly afterward and landed on the railing.  
"Who's this guy?"  
"This is Charlie Eppes, he's a mathematician and he's helping me solve the case of your boyfriend's murder."  
"At what point did somepony say it was a murder?" Rainbow asked as she landed on the balcony itself.  
"Late yesterday when one of ours found bite marks on a piece of rebar near the crime scene – Charlie did the math shortly afterward and it has an 85% match with the gashes in the ground."  
"Even I know 85% is pretty good, and I'm not an egghead like you two. Speaking of which, where's your girlfriend, mister egghead?"  
Twilight answered for him, "Working on something to detect the size and shape of the hoofprints so we can figure out the gender of the attacker."

"Eh, sounds okay. Just tell me when you figure out who murdered him so I can RIP THEM TO PIECES!"  
"Calm down, Rainbow Dash. I know you're angry, but it won't help to lash out like this. Trust me, Princess Celestia and the Royal Court will do a very good job at ripping them to pieces. For now, could you answer a few questions for me?"  
"…mm-hmm."  
As Rainbow walked inside, Twilight said, "Charlie! I'm impressed!"  
"I did some reading. I can read, you know."

They sat down on the floor – no need for seats when you're a pony – and Charlie asked,  
"How long were you together?"  
"Oh, not long… A few months, maybe? He… said we could… be Wonderbolts together…" She wiped her eyes.  
"Did he have any enemies?"  
"No… he had a few ponies who didn't like him all that much, but nopony… really wanted… to kill him…"  
"Could you name a few of these ponies who 'didn't like him'?"  
"Well, he managed to make an enemy of the same pony who I made an enemy of while I was at the Academy: Lightning Dust."

"She got pulled from the Academy though…" Twilight said, "We were there to see it."  
"No, she just got her role of Lead Pony taken away. She's very much still in the Academy- just in the Academy version of Limbo. It's called the Discord Company – where they've kept their misfits and troublemakers for centuries. It has a completely separate ranking system… though it does actually have one."  
"This Lightning Dust… You met in the Academy?" asked Charlie.  
Rainbow nodded. "We were friends at first. Not a surprise, we were the best there. Then she started bragging and stuff… I mean, more than I normally do and way beyond the range of cool or acceptable… she got reckless. I didn't want to tell her though… I thought she'd just fix it with time and I didn't want to hurt her feelings…"  
"But things got out of control?"  
"Mm-hmm. I ended up turning her in to Captain Spitfire, she ended up in the Discord Company and I haven't seen her since. I ended up becoming team leader… I took the history test a little while ago with help from Twi."  
"And you've never even heard of Lightning Dust since then."  
"Mm-mm." She shook her head and looked down.

"Okay, Rainbow Dash. I understand you're upset. And that's fine. Thank you, we're done."  
"Thanks. I hope you guys find whoever killed him."  
She smiled weakly and took off through the window, she perched on the windowsill and said right before taking off,  
"You know, you're alright, Charlie." She smiled, brighter this time. "See ya later."  
After Rainbow left, Charlie said to Twilight, "The spirit of Loyalty must be a good friend to have."  
"Oh, she is. …I assume you read about us?"  
"…Close. I read on the Elements – the second edition of 'The Element of Harmony: a Reference Guide' includes more detailed information, it just came out. I read that."

Amita walked into the room.  
"I've finished the analysis – It's a stallion."  
"One more lead that we didn't have before. Thanks, Amita!" Charlie said happily.  
"Here's an issue, though."  
"What is it?"  
"Pegasi are notoriously light. Even stallions are lightweight. This was a well-built earth stallion. Charlie, I think we have two separate ponies- two separate killers- to look for."

"Actually, it makes significant sense. If it was a pegasus, to leave as little evidence as possible he'd prefer to fly in instead of walk. He wouldn't need to cover his tracks if they didn't exist," Charlie noted.  
Twilight agreed, as did Amita.  
"How's getting Spitfire on the phone going?" Amita asked Twilight.  
"Slow. She may be pretty much anywhere in…"  
"Twilight! Come quick! I got a letter from Spitfire!" exclaimed Spike, running up the stairs with a scroll in his claws.

"It says: 'Twilight Sparkle,  
I understand the significance of this case. I will be there as fast as I can. As you've requested, I'll bring a few trusted guards. I have as much information on the case you requested as I could muster with such short notice on hoof. I'm in flight as my scribe writes this.  
Thanks,  
Spitfire."

~A few minutes later…

The doorbell rang. Twilight flew down and opened it, the rest following behind her. Spitfire walked in, wearing shades and her captain's uniform. She probably hadn't had a chance to change before getting Twilight's letter which told her (possibly with unintended side effects) that lives depended upon her arrival ASAP. Though this was probably true, it may have set off an unintended panic and rush.

Spitfire had two guards who walked in shortly after her and shut the door behind her. Both were pegasus stallions, very tough-looking and most likely fast fliers as well, they both had black manes, one had a dark gray coat and the other had a white one. They wore traditional protective guards' gear – a magic-proof vest, protective magic-resistant helmets with Plexiglas magic-resistant visors that were slightly tinted to block out excess light, wing guards and black shoes with rubber soles that had the Wonderbolts emblem on the fronts.

The white guard was holding a large bag in his teeth. Spitfire grabbed the bag from him and held it in her hoof as she pulled a file folder out of it in her mouth and said through her teeth to Twilight,  
"This is the file on Lightning Dust. It has all the information that is commonly known on her."  
Twilight levitated the file over and showed it to Charlie, who had just come down the stairs with Amita. He read one of the lines aloud:  
"Wingpower: 16. Mm… that's almost as much as Rainbow Dash. Hers is…"  
"16.5," Spitfire interjected.  
"Exactly."

"Current placement: Discord Company," Charlie continued, "Current rank… She's a lead pony… her wing pony is… wait a moment."  
He levitated it over to Twilight, who read the line aloud.  
"Wing pony: Cloud Dasher."


	5. SAFE and Sound

"She murdered her wing pony?" asked Twilight.  
"It appears so," Spitfire noted, "Though I don't know… wait a minute."  
She gestured with a hoof and the gray guard pulled a folded paper out of his chest pocket. She unfolded it and nodded before saying,  
"Cloud Dasher was… never in the Discord Company. It seems we mussed our records somehow."  
"Or somepony changed them," Charlie added.

"Why would somepony want to change the records?" Amita asked.  
"I'm honestly not sure," Spitfire replied, "Our records are kept top-secret. They're held in a safe in my office and only I know the password."  
"It's voice activated?" Charlie asked.  
"All hyper-secure safes in Equestria are magically imbued to be dual-activated," Twilight explained, "They require a spoken password. It checks the voice against its records and identifies if the password is correct at the same time. If either doesn't match up with the code in the magical database, it won't allow access."

"Magical database?" Amita asked.  
"Yes. Actually, you might be incredibly useful in this particular circumstance. Look at your cutie mark."  
"My what?"  
"This," Charlie replied, pointing at the mark on her flank.  
"Hey!" She swatted at his hoof. "Oh wait, there's something there."  
"My point. It represents your special talent," Charlie explained, "See mine? 'T means I'm good at math."  
"As if you needed a butt tattoo to tell us that."  
He rolled his eyes. "Some are more obvious than others. Anyway, yours is a string of binary code. I'll assume it means you're good at programming."  
"And in this universe…"  
"Magical databases."

"So if we're done discussing each others' cutie marks…" Spitfire rolled her eyes.  
"I suggest Amita go with you and she can see what she finds there," Twilight suggested.  
Spitfire saluted her. "I'll have a chariot ready by o-two-hundred, Princess." She gestured to her guards, who promptly flew off to get one. Charlie and Twilight watched them leave, Amita walked back inside.

After they were out of sight, Charlie looked over and asked Twilight,  
"Do pegasi fly with magic?"  
"Uh… I'm not sure. I'm not a pegasologist."  
"Pegasologist?"  
"Pegasus expert. But I'm sure I have some pegasology books somewhere here."

They walked back into the castle and down the hall into the humungous library. Three floors of bluish crystal shelves held loads of books of all sorts.  
"Has to be somewhere," Twilight said, flying around and levitating things in front of her face in circles at the same time. Charlie had to resort to using a sliding ladder, which was much harder to use given that he was an equine.  
"Found it!" exclaimed Twilight suddenly. Startled, Charlie nearly fell off the ladder. After he regained his balance he carefully climbed down the ladder and galloped over to Twilight, he was getting the hang of running like this.

"Let's see it then."  
"Okay. Let's see… ah, here we go. 'Chapter 1: Pegasus Magic'." She cleared her throat then began reading. "A common question among most ponies is thus: Do ponies other than unicorns have magic? The answer is yes. Though neither can commonly cast actual spells, they do use magic. Earth ponies use their magic for their way-above-normal strength. Pegasi use their magic for their flight. A pegasus with faulty flight magic cannot fly as their wings cannot hold them, though with long, hard training they may be able to hover for a short while. However, there have been several examples of such pegasi and none can sustain flight for more than 20 seconds."

"So pegasi have something called flight magic, and it lets them fly."  
"Among other things."  
"Other things?"  
"Pegasi can walk on clouds and manipulate weather inherently, unicorns must learn a very complex spell to manipulate weather and the spell is so complex that most unicorns have difficulty controlling it. As such, weather is left to the pegasi, hence several pegasus-specific entirely cloud comprised cities where weather is created and stored, namely, Las Pegasus and Cloudsdale."  
"So pegasus flight magic also allows them to walk on clouds. Do clouds have magic properties?"  
"I believe so. I'll read some more."

"Wait a moment, Twilight Sparkle… why do pegasi flap their wings if they can use flight magic?"  
"Well… um… I don't know. Let me find out." She flipped to another page. "Here we go! _A few ponies have asked me on several occasions if pegasi really need to flap their wings if flight is handled by magic. The answer is more complicated than usual, actually. Pegasus wing bones are made of alicorn, the same material that makes up unicorn horns. While some believe that the act of beating the wings activates the flight magic, recent studies performed by my colleagues and I revealed that no, the wing beating is simply an evolutionary habit that evolved before pegasus wings had alicorn in them and when the wings were much larger. This change is postulated to have started when interracial marriage became legal. After that, the beating of the wings became an unnecessary attribute._"

"So the wings aren't necessary after all."  
"I suppose so! Well, that's something new. I suppose that if more pegasi read this, they could fly without using their wings. Imagine how much easier everything would be!"  
"Easier…" His eyes went wide and something visibly clicked, for a brief second his purple eyes glowed. He immediately galloped out of the library, down the hallway and into the room Twilight had allocated for her chalkboards for magic work that he'd taken over for this case. He had to find that rebar.

He burst through the door and saw Amita there, practicing levitation.  
"Oh, hi Charlie."  
"Working on magic I see?"  
"I'm trying to get the hang of this while we wait for the chariot to get back."  
"Any idea where that rebar is?"  
"Why do you need it?"  
"Remember those bite marks we found on that rebar?"  
She nodded.  
"Somebody would have to damage their teeth quite a lot if they could make bite marks in a tough metal like rebar."

"So we're looking for an earth pony stallion _with significantly damaged teeth?_ That narrows our criteria, thanks Charlie!"  
"There's actually more. Nobody just bites rebar that much for no reason."  
"That's right! So he had to have been stressed out enough to bite hard enough to make dents in rebar!"  
"Yep."

In a half an hour, at 2:00 p.m., the two stallions arrived back pulling a dark blue painted chariot with the Wonderbolts logo on each side as if the chariot had cutie marks. Amita climbed into the chariot, as did Spitfire right after she saluted Twilight, who nodded. The chariot took off, pulled by the two stallions.

The chariot landed and Spitfire hopped out, followed by Amita. They walked toward the main building when they walked around the side and Spitfire opened a trapdoor, leading the unicorn down the stairs to a basement filled with flight gear.  
"What's all this stuff for?"  
"This is where we store our flight apparatus. Those are the spare suits" she pointed to a box full of costumes in all sizes that were identical in design to the one she saw on Cloud's body in the pictures she was shown, "and those are lightning-proof suits for when we're doing possibly dangerous weather training with the newbies" she pointed to a series of white suits with black trim that Amita had never seen before but she'd heard the term 'lightning-proof suit', "and those are the safes in which we keep all our files."

She pointed to a wall completely covered in safes, suddenly and without her even knowing about it Amita's horn began to glow the same dark blue as her eyes as several slightly transparent dark blue-tinted tabs appeared in front of her vision with lines of code on them. She scanned the safes: each one had a complex lock system. That is, until she got to another. Her eyes went wide in horror as she read the words typed in a comment as the only code there: "_**Hello, Amita. If you've gotten this far that means you've done well. But not quite well enough. I will be back to take the remainder of what's mine.**_"

"Amita? Are you okay?" The voice sounded distant, though it got closer with every word. "Amita? Hello?"  
"…Yes. I need to talk to Charlie."  
"But that's an hour away by chariot." Spitfire had obviously heard the urgency in Amita's voice.  
"Fifteen seconds by teleportation." Her horn began to glow, her legs bent as her hooves dug sharply into the dirt floor below. She squinted, weaving the magical fabric of the intricate and complicated spell as she pulled more and more arcane energy into herself. She carefully visualized where she needed to go, her eyes closed tightly in concentration. She'd only performed the spell once before, and it had only been as short a distance as across the mid-sized blackboard room. But she wasn't sure when this pony (or ponies) would strike back and she had to hurry.


	6. Magical Database

Charlie was standing at one of the blackboards, writing down notes on what they had so far and what still needed to be found out, thinking over what could have happened. Suddenly there was a bright flash of dark bluish light from one corner of the room as a silhouette of a unicorn mare appeared, the light dissipated and a very dazed-looking Amita stood there. Before Charlie could ask what was wrong of if she was okay, she said,  
"We need to go to the Academy. Now. I need to show you something and we need security there, fast."  
"Okay, I'll call Princess Twilight Sparkle and the EBI. How soon?"  
"NOW."

Completely ignoring her magical exhaustion, she started to power up her teleportation spell. Charlie realized how idiotic she was being but since he had no idea how to stop a spell from working, he did the only thing he could at that point: he helped her out.  
Pouring some of his own magic into the spell she was trying to cast helped her significantly. But it quite definitely wasn't enough.  
"Charlie, I believe I…" Twilight walked in the room with the plastic bag with the rebar inside in her magical grasp. It clattered to the floor as it was released from her grip in her shock. A blue-violet light glowed throughout the room, getting brighter as it got closer to its source, the silhouettes of the two ponies creating the aura grayed out behind the bright light. But this was hardly all of what Twilight saw.

A pony as experienced as Twilight in magic sees the actual arcane power being manipulated in front of them. This is how a magic teacher can tell if their student is performing a spell correctly or how Celestia first saw her student Twilight's magical potential when she was a filly. She saw the huge woven pattern of arcane energy, but for a teleportation spell it wasn't nearly enough. She saw something else within one of the ponies: they were completely exhausted. Their magical potential nearly tapped out, as if they'd already spent it… wait. That just had to be… well then there was one thing she could do.

Twilight saw where they were trying to go and even automatically knew some of why they were trying to go there by means of teleportation when she began feeding her own alicorn magic into the spell. A teleportation spell was incredibly easy for her, though she'd hardly do it unnecessarily. Teleporting three ponies at once would take thrice the effort, but it wouldn't be the hardest magical feat she'd performed. Weaving magic wasn't really much different than weaving threads of any other sort together, just in a more abstract sense.

The three ponies appeared in a bright flash of light – a magenta-colored flash proceeded by several spare strings of blue and green magic – in the Academy's basement. Spitfire shielded her eyes. It had hardly been five minutes since she'd seen Amita disappear. The magic dissipated and three ponies stood there. Spitfire bowed.  
"Good afternoon, Princess. Amita here explained about getting Charlie but said nothing about getting you as well."  
"I just thought I'd tag along."  
"That's what magic that doesn't have enough energy to work… feels like?"  
"Um… yes, Charlie. Yes it does."  
"So you did do something." Spitfire raised an eyebrow suspiciously.  
"Okay, fine, I helped a little."

"It wasn't the best idea for me to try another spell by myself. Thanks Charlie, thanks Twilight."  
"Just curious though," Charlie gestured with a forehoof, "What happens if a unicorn completely taps out their magic?"  
"It can seriously impair their functioning for a while, magically and physically. Magical exhaustion carries over to physical exhaustion after a certain point. Also, at that moment it knocks them unconscious and they can't move at all for several hours at least. I've gone to magical exhaustion only a few times under the tutelage of Princess Celestia but she'd always help me up afterward and we'd usually have an early lunch, usually featuring significant amounts of dark chocolate. It helps the mood and magical exhaustion can trigger mood swings in ponies prone to such things, I was as a filly. But chocolate also tastes good and having something good to eat afterward also helps. It's sort of like working out to failure, only more so."

"Speaking of which…" Twilight materialized a few squares of dark chocolate and levitated them over to Amita and Charlie, the squares exchanged auras and each took a bite of their chocolate.  
"But Charlie and now Twilight, I wanted to bring you here because… well, look at this one." She pointed to a safe on the bottom row near the far-left side.  
For the second time since he arrived there he stared at an object and expected it to do something. And for the second time it didn't. But Twilight, for the second time, seemed to be able to do it. She seemed to know what Amita was talking about.  
"I wonder which one of the killers this is." Twilight had no fear in her voice.

"Shouldn't we fill Charlie in? He looks confused."  
"Yeah."  
"Okay then. Amita showed me the magical database here. Somepony wiped all the existing lock code and replaced it with a comment string saying that they would be here soon, 'to take the remainder of what's theirs' they said."  
"Shouldn't the EBI be called in?"  
"EBI?" Amita looked confused.  
"Equestrian Bureau of Investigation. The Feds as ponies."  
"Okay. But why aren't we calling them in, Twilight?"

Twilight unfolded her wings, her horn glowed and she looked around with a glower on her face, wary but intentional and unwavering. Somehow Charlie knew what she was doing. She was probably thinking particularly loudly. He powered up the same spell, apparently it allowed him to see through walls, detect heat signatures and see hidden things generically. He knew because immediately he saw a pegasus, a unicorn and an earth pony behind one of the walls of boxes. The pegasus gestured something to the other two and they stopped in their tracks, nodding. The unicorn and the earth pony seemed to be conversing without moving their mouths, he could only hear a few words here and there. The pegasus was advancing on them, but though she quite definitely had a heat signature he couldn't see her.

Then he heard Twilight's voice and he rapidly turned his head to the side. But she wasn't moving her lips. He darted his head quickly to the other side to make it look less suspicious to the pegasus, still listening to Twilight as she said,  
"Get beside me. Now. But don't do it quickly. Careful, cautious, normal-looking. Got it?"  
He slowly backed over toward Twilight.  
He felt himself growing thinner, paler, as if he was slowly turning invisible, but he held himself where he was.


	7. Alicorn Magic

Charlie was standing at one of the blackboards, writing down notes on what they had so far and what still needed to be found out, thinking over what could have happened. Suddenly there was a bright flash of dark bluish light from one corner of the room as a silhouette of a unicorn mare appeared, the light dissipated and a very dazed-looking Amita stood there. Before Charlie could ask what was wrong of if she was okay, she said,  
"We need to go to the Academy. Now. I need to show you something and we need security there, fast."  
"Okay, I'll call Princess Twilight Sparkle and the EBI. How soon?"  
"NOW."

Completely ignoring her magical exhaustion, she started to power up her teleportation spell. Charlie realized how idiotic she was being but since he had no idea how to stop a spell from working, he did the only thing he could at that point: he helped her out.  
Pouring some of his own magic into the spell she was trying to cast helped her significantly. But it quite definitely wasn't enough.  
"Charlie, I believe I…" Twilight walked in the room with the plastic bag with the rebar inside in her magical grasp. It clattered to the floor as it was released from her grip in her shock. A blue-violet light glowed throughout the room, getting brighter as it got closer to its source, the silhouettes of the two ponies creating the aura grayed out behind the bright light. But this was hardly all of what Twilight saw.

A pony as experienced as Twilight in magic sees the actual arcane power being manipulated in front of them. This is how a magic teacher can tell if their student is performing a spell correctly or how Celestia first saw her student Twilight's magical potential when she was a filly. She saw the huge woven pattern of arcane energy, but for a teleportation spell it wasn't nearly enough. She saw something else within one of the ponies: they were completely exhausted. Their magical potential nearly tapped out, as if they'd already spent it… wait. That just had to be… well then there was one thing she could do.

Twilight saw where they were trying to go and even automatically knew some of why they were trying to go there by means of teleportation when she began feeding her own alicorn magic into the spell. A teleportation spell was incredibly easy for her, though she'd hardly do it unnecessarily. Teleporting three ponies at once would take thrice the effort, but it wouldn't be the hardest magical feat she'd performed. Weaving magic wasn't really much different than weaving threads of any other sort together, just in a more abstract sense.

The three ponies appeared in a bright flash of light – a magenta-colored flash proceeded by several spare strings of blue and green magic – in the Academy's basement. Spitfire shielded her eyes. It had hardly been five minutes since she'd seen Amita disappear. The magic dissipated and three ponies stood there. Spitfire bowed.  
"Good afternoon, Princess. Amita here explained about getting Charlie but said nothing about getting you as well."  
"I just thought I'd tag along."  
"That's what magic that doesn't have enough energy to work… feels like?"  
"Um… yes, Charlie. Yes it does."  
"So you did do something." Spitfire raised an eyebrow suspiciously.  
"Okay, fine, I helped a little."

"It wasn't the best idea for me to try another spell by myself. Thanks Charlie, thanks Twilight."  
"Just curious though," Charlie gestured with a forehoof, "What happens if a unicorn completely taps out their magic?"  
"It can seriously impair their functioning for a while, magically and physically. Magical exhaustion carries over to physical exhaustion after a certain point. Also, at that moment it knocks them unconscious and they can't move at all for several hours at least. I've gone to magical exhaustion only a few times under the tutelage of Princess Celestia but she'd always help me up afterward and we'd usually have an early lunch, usually featuring significant amounts of dark chocolate. It helps the mood and magical exhaustion can trigger mood swings in ponies prone to such things, I was as a filly. But chocolate also tastes good and having something good to eat afterward also helps. It's sort of like working out to failure, only more so."

"Speaking of which…" Twilight materialized a few squares of dark chocolate and levitated them over to Amita and Charlie, the squares exchanged auras and each took a bite of their chocolate.  
"But Charlie and now Twilight, I wanted to bring you here because… well, look at this one." She pointed to a safe on the bottom row near the far-left side.  
For the second time since he arrived there he stared at an object and expected it to do something. And for the second time it didn't. But Twilight, for the second time, seemed to be able to do it. She seemed to know what Amita was talking about.  
"I wonder which one of the killers this is." Twilight had no fear in her voice.

"Shouldn't we fill Charlie in? He looks confused."  
"Yeah."  
"Okay then. Amita showed me the magical database here. Somepony wiped all the existing lock code and replaced it with a comment string saying that they would be here soon, 'to take the remainder of what's theirs' they said."  
"Shouldn't the EBI be called in?"  
"EBI?" Amita looked confused.  
"Equestrian Bureau of Investigation. The Feds as ponies."  
"Okay. But why aren't we calling them in, Twilight?"

Twilight unfolded her wings, her horn glowed and she looked around with a glower on her face, wary but intentional and unwavering. Somehow Charlie knew what she was doing. She was probably thinking particularly loudly. He powered up the same spell, apparently it allowed him to see through walls, detect heat signatures and see hidden things generically. He knew because immediately he saw a pegasus, a unicorn and an earth pony behind one of the walls of boxes. The pegasus gestured something to the other two and they stopped in their tracks, nodding. The unicorn and the earth pony seemed to be conversing without moving their mouths, he could only hear a few words here and there. The pegasus was advancing on them, but though she quite definitely had a heat signature he couldn't see her.

Then he heard Twilight's voice and he rapidly turned his head to the side. But she wasn't moving her lips. He darted his head quickly to the other side to make it look less suspicious to the pegasus, still listening to Twilight as she said,  
"Get beside me. Now. But don't do it quickly. Careful, cautious, normal-looking. Got it?"  
He slowly backed over toward Twilight.  
He felt himself growing thinner, paler, as if he was slowly turning invisible, but he held himself where he was.


End file.
